Ironman Wisconsin: The Swim
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The swim start, before the cannon goes off.I can't even say Sunday, September 9th dawned clear and bright, because when I left my condo at 4:35 a.m. to walk the eight or so blocks to the square that morning, it was still pitch black out.
I had laid out my clothes the night before on a chair of my kitchen table, and assembled the pieces of my breakfast (Mojo bar, English muffin with peanut butter and honey, Powerbar recovery drink, water, and Gatorade) so that the only thing to do in the morning would be to toast the muffin and grab the recovery shake from the fridge.
I ate in silence, in the dark, at my table with my two dogs -- Newt and Leonard -- for company. I was trying not to wake my parents or Chief of Stuff, asleep in the adjoining rooms. But I was also soaking in the stillness and heaviness of the morning. There were many questions to be kept at bay (Would I or wouldn't I? Could I or couldn't I?), and just as many that were important to think through thoroughly (What would I do first and what would make the most sense -- special needs, body marking, or coffee?)
At quarter-to, I grabbed my bike and run special needs bags, my dry clothes bag, and bike pump all packed into an old ski duffel, and headed out the door for the 10-minute walk to the square.
Across the street, some twenty-something boys were just shutting down a party -- turning off the lights and heading upstairs for bed. I will -- hopefully -- be half-way done with the bike course by the time they even get out of bed, I thought. It was funny. I remember that kind of schedule -- the party-all-night and sleep-all-day schedule that I often kept through college and even, at times, in graduate school. I remember, back then, feeling sorry for the poor blokes I'd see leaving for work or out on a run as I was stumbling home to my bed. Now, thinking about what lay ahead that day, the roles were reversed. It was them I felt sorry for.
Dropping off my special needs on either side of Pinkney St. was uneventful and quick. So, before the line grew too long, I decided to grab a coffee before body marking instead of the other way around. The plan was a Starbucks grande nonfat mocha -- tried and tested several times over the summer. Funny enough, the barista who I often see during my mid-morning or mid-afternoon workday coffee breaks recognized me (I really do go there that much that a barista recognizes me at 4:45 in the morning, barely awake). "You're not really doing this, are you?" she asked, acknowledging my IM-branded dry clothes bag and bike pump. I nodded, feeling the same way. Was I really doing this? Ho-ly. I mean, a whole year had gone by? Already?!? Was I ready for this? Was this really it?
She wished me well, and gave me a complimentary water bottle and package of coffee beans, and I was off to body marking, where I looked unsuccessfully for J-Wim and Mike, who were volunteering. But the Terrace was a zoo, and I was feeling the need to hunker down in the hallway with my Ipod and coffee as soon as possible, so I hoped that I might catch them later in the day.
I made my way as close as possible to the door we'd be exiting out of for the swim start, and hear someone calling my name. It was Rural Girl . I settled in on the floor next to her, and found myself happy to share in some pre-race chit-chat. The alternative was stashing myself in a corner and visualizing obsessively while listening to my Ipod; but I had decided long ago that this day would be about fun -- a celebration of all that I'd accomplished and all that I'd put those close to me through in the last year -- and that one more session of visualization might only amp my nerves, not assuage them. So we shared a Gatorade I had stashed in my bag and waited.
After this entire year of preparation, I was just ready to get the day started. Finally, it was time to start pulling on wetsuits, slathering on bodyglide, and making our way down to the water. Walking out of the Terrace, I took note of the sunrise: a glowing pink splash on the horizon, and hoped that it was an indication of the day to come. Stu, Rural Girl, Wil, a few others and I proceeded in a group down the helix, but separated near the bottom due to the sheer numbers of athletes and the almost-pandemonium created by Mike Riley's voice booming over the loudspeaker: "Let's keep moving. Everyone needs to get in the water. Pro's take off in five minutes!"
I made my way to the dry clothes drop-off, all the way searching the crowd for my team so I could hand off my bike pump to them. But one of the day's many, many amazing volunteers took it from me and assured me he'd attach it to my bag (And wouldn't you know it -- at 10:00 later that night, that's exactly how I found it). Thank goodness, because I never did see my team. I kept scanning both sides of the ramp for any yellow shirts until it was time to put that behind me, situate my goggles, and start swimming far out into the middle of the course, left of the first buoy where I intended to start.
Bobbing in the middle of Lake Monona, I felt strangely detached. No nerves. No apprehension. It felt like a training day alongside a couple thousand other people, with a few thousand looking on. But I wanted -- needed -- to feel something. This was Ironman, after all.
So I flipped onto my back, facing the Terrace, and tried to drink in every detail. AC/DC's Thunderstruck (a staple on my Ironman training playlist) blared through the speakers, and I felt my pulse fall in line. Somewhere in the mass of people lining the Terrace were my people. They were there for me today, and they'd finally see what all of the training, sacrifice, and fuss was about. I couldn't wait for them to experience Ironman along with me -- to feel what I felt all those years ago when I first witnessed it.
I looked around at the mass of bobbing caps, thinking how each one of them had their own story, their own reasons, their own goals. Yet here we all were, in this one lake, together. Sappy? Perhaps. For some, this was a competition; but for the majority, it was a shared experience...a journey, of which the last 140.6 miles would be covered alongside their fellow athletes, and with their families, friends, and other supporters.
The pros took off then, and the kayakers were asked to hold the line. I swam a bit farther to the inside, as my little area had crowded a bit since I first staked it out. "I'm hanging back for a few before I start," a guy in front of me said. I told him that was fine, that that was my plan too.
"TWO MINUTES! WHO WANTS TO BE AN IRONMAN TODAY?!?" Mike Riley's voice boomed.
Two minutes had never gone so quickly. I didn't hear the cannon, but I instantly felt the water churning around me. Only a handful of strokes into the race, I thought, So this is the famed Ironman washing machine. Hmmm. It wasn't all that bad. As if there was a bubble around me, I found a space early on to swim in, and stayed in it -- just inside the buoys -- almost all the way to the first turn.
The Ironman "washing machine."
That first length went quickly, and as I rounded the turn, I was kicked hard for the first and only time during that race. But I didn't let it rile me. I'm not sure if it was all my previous thinking about what a great, communal experience IM was, or if I was just that relaxed, or if it really wasn't that bad, but whatever the case, I didn't encounter any of the IM-swim horrors that I'd heard about for the past year.
Rounding the turn to complete the first lap of the swim, I felt a strange sensation, as if I was caught in a giant draft going around the buoy. I actually felt pulled right around the turn.
Almost as if on cue, the right side of my back knotted up to start the second lap. It had been giving me problems since the week before, after a particularly horrendous and harrowing open water swim in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and I knew that it would be with me the rest of the day. It was more painful than aggravating, but I had to switch from right to left-side breathing to try and give it a rest.
At one point, still on the out-stretch, I miss-sighted and thought I was almost upon the turn buoy. Exciting! It didn't take long, however, to realize I hadn't yet cleared the far end of the Monona Terrace, and it was the half-way buoy, not the turn buoy. So I tried to calm my breathing again and settle back into a rhythm.
On the back-stretch, I did the very same thing. After sprinting for a handful of yards, I realized the group in front of me hadn't turned off. They were still swimming. Far, far, far off into the distance. Tired and disheartened, shoulders and back starting to scream, I put my head down and decided not to look at the distance for a bit. Just swim, I told myself. Mechanics, stroke, one with the water, don't fight it. That's when I promptly swam straight into a buoy, knocking myself backwards.
Stunned, I could only hope no one else had noticed.
Soon after, I found myself in between two large men, both with scary looking strokes. Like swinging a golf club, the one on my left would bring his arm out of the water slowly, letting it gather speed on the way down, slapping into the watter with a "crack!" every time. The one on my right was simply flailing -- trying to power himself through the water as hard as he could. Fearing bodily harm if I got too close to either one, I stopped and let them go by, just in time to see them collide with one another. Fair match up at least...
Before long, I once again felt the familiar pull around the final turn, and started kicking my legs and picking up my pace to get the blood flowing. It was no wonder, I thought, that people's race reports didn't get too into the swim -- it really was over before you knew it. Like the race director had said on Friday night, "The swim course director always makes this more complicated than it has to be. It's just left turn, left turn, left turn, repeat. If you want to feel sorry for someone, we've got the bike and run course directors up next."
My hands touched rubber, and I struggled to stand on the shore's steep incline. Two volunteers grabbed my arms and nearly lifted me onto dry land. I looked up and beamed at what I saw on the clock: 1:26. That was a PR over the open water swim in early August by 14 minutes!
I was ecstatic...but also disoriented. Somehow, I remembered to run to the wetsuit strippers and after I quit "helping" them, they were able to get my suit off in a matter of seconds. And I also had the wherewithal to hold my wetsuit in front of me, lest someone snap an unflattering pic of me in spandex and a sports bra.
My "run" up the helix was more of a shuffle. I knew I needed to get the blood flowing, but this was probably the toughest part of the entire day. I just. felt. terrible. All-over terrible. I couldn't help but think, If it's this bad now... But then I saw my mom, clinging to a lightpole above the crowd. She waved frantically, and then shouted to the rest of my yellow-clad team, "There she is! There she is!" The woman who had been lamenting, "I can't wait until this whole thing is over," every time I talked to her on the phone in the last year, finally seemed to be getting into the Ironman spirit. I saw Chief of Stuff and reached out for his hand, and yelled and waved to more of my team. My feeling terrible was behind me. This, I could tell, was going to be an incredible day.
Then, sitting down in transition, I couldn't get my legs to stop shaking. They were bouncing up and down all on their own. It wasn't because I was cold. Or nervous. I don't know what was going on with them, but it was a relief to get suited up and start the most dreaded part of the day for me -- the bike.
Swim time: 1:26:40
T1: 8:43
On my way out of T1.
Posted by Erin 2:36 PM
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don't feel bad you missed us - Mike was writing on people in crayon anyhow...
Great job,, what a day..
I found your blog from J-wim and Mike.
Can't wait to read more.
Congratulations, Ironman.
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